


Falling

by redskyatmorning



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Coda, Declarations Of Love, M/M, Missing Scene, Parabatai Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redskyatmorning/pseuds/redskyatmorning
Summary: Two missing scenes from 2x10: Jace tries to talk to Alec about what happened with the soul sword. Afterwards, Magnus and Alec take some time for themselves to deal with what just happened between the two of them, and where to go from here.





	

“Hey, wait.”

Jace can’t help but call after Alec, watching him retreat down the hallway of the Institute. They had just had a brief conversation, but he had not said half the things he wanted to say to Alec. It has become harder and harder, as the burdens grow heavier, to speak them into words with anybody, even Alec, who always understands, who can feel it all too. _I want to be alone for a few minutes_ , Jace had said apologetically, but that’s not the truth at all.

Alec turns around immediately, head cocked to the side in a slight question, loping back over to where Jace is leaned against the wall. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Here in the darkened Institute hallway in the late evening, the shadows are long, the dying sunlight filtering in through the stained windows of this cathedral he has called a tenuous home. It catches a spark in Jace’s golden hair, making it shine brighter; but it bathes the dark-haired Alec in a curious, almost ethereal half-darkness as he faces away from the light, towards Jace, his hazel eyes darkening to brown. This has always been Jace’s favourite time of day, the in-between time of twilight, but right now it gives him no joy. There is just nothing but this gutted, hollow feeling that never goes away.

“I’m – ” Jace hesitates. “Listen, I’m glad Magnus is okay.”

Alec’s grave demeanour brightens into a faint smile. “Yeah. Me too.”

Jace hesitates, thinking about Alec’s face earlier today, when he thought he had lost Magnus. “And I’m – I’m sorry.”

The words hang in the air between them for a moment before Alec shakes his head vehemently. “No, _I’m_ sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you or Clary like that, I was just - It’s not your fault, Jace – it’s _not_ – ” he insists over Jace trying to cut in.

“I know that, I just – ” Jace starts to lie, but Alec is having none of it. Now that Jace has broached the subject, it has opened floodgates in his parabatai that he did not know were there; but that’s the thing about Alec. He’s all hidden depths, his stony exterior a weak façade.

“No, I know you, Jace, and I can feel what you’re feeling, and it’s _not_ your fault. You thought you were doing the right thing, and even _that_ – trying to do that, to kill yourself – _Jace –_ ”

Jace interrupts him as he starts to become incoherent in his admonishment, wishing their conversations didn't always become arguments like this, wishing that they could go back in time before everything had been so irrevocably ruined. “It was my life or thousands, Alec, _millions_. It was me or Magnus, Simon, Luke, Maia. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do that. If it were you – if it were Magnus’s life – ”

Alec runs a hand through his dark hair in frustration, making it even messier than it normally is. “Yeah, but that’s me and you’re not in love with a Downworlder, you can’t pretend that’s your excuse. Jace, I know – I know it was the right thing to do, I get that, more than anyone else gets it. But please – ” Alec pauses, trying to figure out the words. Jace has always found that short buffering time of Alec's endearing. “You know if you die – you _know_ – I can’t live without you. And – no, yeah, I know people can survive the severance of the bond, but even if I did, Jace, _I_ can’t live without _you_. Not just because we're parabatai, but as your friend, your brother, whatever you want to call it.”

Jace swallows, any words he was going to say, any biting contradiction or witty retort, dying in his throat. For a moment, just a single moment, he feels like this world wants him in it, that there is a place for him here somewhere. He is not a pariah, he is not a stranger to the people that he once loved, but he is still one of them, one of the dark-haired Lightwoods that took in some twisted mistake to raise as their son. Looking into Alec’s wide, earnest eyes, he could almost – _almost_ – believe it to be true.

But none of these words seem to want to be spoken. “Wait, in _love?_ Did I miss something?” Jace says finally, just ignoring all of the rest of what Alec had said, holding all this love in his hands and watching it slip through his fingers like sand, not knowing what to do with it.

Alec shrugs, but Jace can see how colour is creeping up his cheeks. His mouth opens and closes for a moment, as if he is searching for the right words. “Yeah, uh, yeah – we, um, we had a moment. _That_ wasn’t the point of what I just said to you, come on.”

Jace has to smile. After everything, in the aftermath of this horrific day, as he feels the weight of a thousand burnt and dead souls on his shoulders, Alec’s little blush and barely-there grin cuts through it all. He has never seen his parabatai like this, and now he never wants to see him any other way.

“What kind of moment?” he teases. “Do tell. Was it one of those big, sweeping romantic kisses, and then you say – ”

“Shut up,” Alec mutters, looking away, his blush intensifying. “It’s not – don’t change the subject.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jace says gently. Another lie. They will start to weigh on him too, just like the lives – the deaths – when they are spoken to those honest and wide-open hazel eyes. “And I promise, from now on, if I ever go on a suicide mission again, I’ll get your approval beforehand.”

“No, you won’t,” Alec says, stubborn as a brick wall. “That’s the point.”

“Okay,” Jace says, not wanting to fight it.

There is a moment’s silence. “Jace,” Alec says. “We love you. Me, Izzy, Mom, Dad, Max – you’re our family. We love you. _I_ – ” he cuts himself off, swallowing. “I want to protect you, I know you don’t think you need it, but – you at least have to tell me what you’re fighting. I don’t always know, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Okay,” Jace says at length, nodding, trying to make his voice sound less hollow. “Okay, Alec. Thanks.”

Alec just looks at him, part fondness but mostly desperation, trying to find it, trying to find the thing that hurts him so he can destroy it, ever the big brother, the consummate protector. But they, for all that they love each other, have never been good at figuring each other out. Still, it touches Jace beyond words, everything that Alec is saying, that Alec would so willingly take on the blame that belongs only to Jace himself. He wishes Alec wouldn’t, but Alec always does – he takes on the pain of others as his burden, readily assuming that he caused it, that he deserves it somehow. That’s not fair.

“Alec,” Jace repeats, “I’ll be fine. Anyway, I need to go talk to Clary, remember? Sort things out with her. You should go find Magnus.”

Alec nods slowly, as if trying to convince himself. Eventually, he acquiesces, and with one last long look at Jace, he turns to leave. Then, suddenly, as if changing his mind, he turns back to Jace and envelops him in a strong hug, before Jace can register or protest what’s happening. Not that he wants to protest it – after his initial surprise, he hugs back – Alec isn’t a big hugger, normally, but whenever he does, there’s the strangest feeling of safety that washes over Jace, even in these dark times. That extra three inches of height, the rhythm of their matched heartbeats, the way he rests his face against Alec’s shoulder – it’s all comforting in a way that he can’t describe, and it reminds Jace that he has family, and that there is a home for him here, somewhere.

“You gonna be okay?” Alec checks as they part.

“Yeah,” Jace says, with a smile that feels almost genuine. “Thanks, Alec.”

“Yeah, no problem. Good luck with Clary.”

Alec turns to leave, and doesn’t come back this time. Jace has no intention of going to speak with Clary just yet – he doesn’t think he can stomach it. Every thought of her, beautiful as the morning, the twinkle of her green eyes when she smiles – it still makes him feel sick, the way that goodness radiates from her in a way that makes him feel like if he touches it, or her, it will cast her into the same ugly darkness that he himself lives in. He’ll see her smile from a distance, in passing. Even if it hurts, it’s better that way.

Jace watches from the stained-glass window as, down below, Alec leaves the Institute with Magnus, their hands intertwined, walking in perfect step with one another. He watches, feeling unpleasantly voyeuristic, but not being able to tear his eyes away somehow, as Alec and Magnus share a kiss on the steps of the old cathedral as the late-autumn sunset bathes them half in shadow, half in gold. He smiles slightly, remembering that it was not so long ago that Alec would rather die than admit he had any kind of feelings, especially these ones, especially for a man. He remembers with an aching sort of compassion now how Alec would just say to him when the subject came up when they were teenagers, _I don’t have time for girls_ , and later simply, _I don’t want relationships._ Having been so preoccupied as of late, Jace did not realize what had happened, even as he had been feeling the echoes of it through their bond – Alec has fallen in love, hard and fast, slightly inelegant, but by giving everything that he has. The way Alec does everything.

Jace wonders, then, if there was a secret rule, something they did not tell young soldiers who wanted to be bonded to their brothers for the rest of their lives. He wonders if somehow happiness becomes a shared and scarce resource between parabatai, a zero-sum game. If one has it, the other cannot. It doesn’t seem fair, but nothing seems that way anymore. Nothing about being a Shadowhunter, about being nobody’s son and brother to no-one, about being human. He reflects on all the years before this one when Alec had been so desperately miserable without anyone having been the wiser, including Jace himself who had been surviving – if not happy, then at least content. Now as he feels the shy sort of happiness he never felt from Alec before, it feels like it is sapping his own supply somehow. Like he cannot be happy in this moment, or any other, even if he tried to be. Like he is hollow. Of course it isn’t Alec’s fault, and he will never tell Alec, just as Alec had suffered in silence before. But it’s the nicest, cleanest explanation – old runes and sacred traditions and ancient bonds of brotherhood make sense. Nothing else seems to anymore.

***

After Alec had found Magnus in the ops room of the Institute, it had taken about half a moment of silent communication for them to mutually understand that they wanted some time alone together, and Magnus had immediately portalled them to his apartment. On their minds, there is the stomach-turning scent of burnt flesh and the mountains of corpses waiting back home for them, eyes wide and waiting; on their lips, the memory of a sweet kiss and honeyed, heart-quickening words linger like dusted sugar. Love and her sister, war: the harsh, perpetual juxtaposition of Magnus’s lifetime – the pair always nestled next to each other in this relentless embrace, bloodied hearts and beaten lungs, the naked need to be close to somebody when the world is coming down around you.

“Sorry, I can’t stay long,” Alec says apologetically as he and Magnus step into the loft. “They’re looking for the person who’s taken the Soul Sword, and I need to be back there soon.”

“No worries." Magnus elegantly shrugs off his jacket and scarf. “After what just happened, the Downworld’s in complete disarray. I’ve got meetings for days, almost literally, starting in about…two hours.”

Alec sighs, taking off his jacket and throwing it onto the futon unceremoniously. It warms Magnus, seeing that casual gesture, that small but unabashed admission of being in a place called home. “I wish – I mean, it’s all important, but I wish it could just – ”

“Stop?” Magnus finishes, smiling slightly. “Just for a while, right? I feel like we’ve barely had a minute to breathe in the past few weeks.”

“Well,” Alec says, stepping towards Magnus, “we have now.”

“Yes,” Magnus smiles, coming forward to close the space between them, “we do, don’t we?”

Once their lips meet, it doesn’t take them very long to get comfortable on Magnus’s couch together, Alec practically in Magnus’s lap as they kiss – long, slow, decadent open-mouthed kisses - as if they have all the time in the world, as if this indulgence is the only thing that matters, soft wet lips and sharp, dizzied gasps of longing. Every touch is different now, the way the sky looks different when the clouds part slightly and gild themselves with young sunlight, the way the world seems to ripple when there’s fire in the air. It is different, because Magnus knows now that this is love and can have a fleeting hope that it will not go away. Even so, Magnus doesn’t think he ever wants to let go of Alec even for a moment, even to breathe, even to drink in those hazel eyes, those long, dark lashes that frame them. Every one of Magnus’s nerve endings feels like it is on fire, somehow, every cell in his body tingling with something he can’t describe, something that looks like desire but is a hundred times more potent, a spark of this unnameable flame licking up his spine and pouring into every part of him. Magnus wraps his arms around Alec, trying to pull him even closer than they are, their bodies pressed against each other’s so that Magnus doesn’t think he could separate himself from Alec if he tried. And the last thing he wants to do right now is try. 

As Magnus runs his hands through Alec’s hair, kissing him thoroughly breathless, barely parting for breath, he can’t help but remember those words. _Magnus, I love you_. He has heard those words a few times before, but never so sweetly and breathlessly spoken. Never before has he believed them so utterly. When Alec says things to him, he can’t help but be swayed into believing them, because that is just who Alec is, honest to a fault. It isn’t persuasion, it isn’t captivating people into believing that his every word is gospel – he has been with people like that. This is utterly different: this is sincerity in its simplest and most beautiful form.

“Magnus,” Alec whispers, voice wrecked, just as Magnus is thinking this, his face only millimetres away from Magnus so he can feel Alec’s warm breath on his lips still. His eyelashes are fluttering around wide and slightly glazed eyes, his breath coming in short, soft gasps.

“What is it, Alexander?”

Alec opens his mouth to say something further. He looks away from Magnus, focusing at some point behind him and above his head as he searches for the words. Magnus waits patiently. He has all the time in the world to wait for what Alec has to say, even if it takes him a few tries to get it right. It seems the rest of the world has not been very understanding to him, and Magnus’s heart goes out to him every single time he trips or stammers over hurried words.

“I just – ”  he shakes his head, unable to say anything for now.

“I understand,” Magnus murmurs, to let him know that it’s okay, that he will get there.

Alec shakes his head again, his face breaking into a smile so wide it is almost blinding. It almost scares Magnus, the thought of what he would do to see that smile. It does not scare him to want to save someone, but it does to want to be saved himself. It scares him to want to be happy, and yet he has never been happier or less afraid to be in love. But it seems the usual rules might not fit anymore, that there is still something Magnus does not know about being loved. That there is still something to be learned, and there still exists some rare pearl of happiness that is not old and worn-out from use already as most things are after all these centuries.

Instead of reaching back for Magnus’s lips, Alec instead pulls Magnus into his arms, resting his face into the crook between Magnus’s neck and shoulder, and for a moment it feels like no  force in the world could ever tear them apart, the way that Alec holds Magnus with no intention, it seems, of ever letting go. Just like that, the flame that had just seized them, that licked their flesh and bones, burns into something else – it does not disappear, but it becomes less urgent and more comforting, the warmth of a hearth seeping into Magnus’s skin. Magnus closes his eyes and feels the rhythm of a heartbeat next to him and it’s like he has come home.

Eventually, Alec nestles comfortably against Magnus, Magnus’s arm around him as he rests his head on Magnus’s chest, leaning up for the occasional kiss, as if he cannot help himself. But now they are just basking in the light of one another, in being close and being happy, even if for a moment. But the events of the day are still fresh on both of their minds.

“I’d been meaning to ask you,” Alec says eventually, his brow furrowing in slight concern. He is still cuddled up against Magnus, safe in his arms, his voice soft and hoarse. “How is Madzie? I didn’t see her after she – after the whole thing. Is she gonna be okay with Catarina?”

Magnus smiles faintly. “She’ll be fine, I hope. After everything she’s been through, it’s always hard to say, but she’s tough. Anyway, have you _met_ Catarina?”

“No, you haven’t introduced us, remember?” Alec says, either choosing to ignore or missing the fact that the question was rhetorical.

“Right,” Magnus says. “Remind me to do that soon. She’ll like you.”

Magnus had been hesitant for Alec to meet Catarina, worried that something would happen – that Alec would somehow stop caring about him somewhere along the way, that he would be left alone again, that Catarina would shake her head and think, _Magnus never learns._ But that was before today. Before Alec had so straightforwardly, so matter-of-factly, offered his heart to Magnus, along with an outstretched hand asking for one in return. With that gesture, a promise. _I won’t break it_. Magnus had not remembered love to be something that could be as simple as just that, something so easy. But that was before today. Before looking into those hazel eyes today, flecked with green-gold, and understanding something he for all of his years still does not know how to name, whose ache he feels somewhere deeply and warmly in his chest.

At Magnus’s words – _she’ll like you_ – Alec scoffs a little, rolling his eyes, but his lips turn up in a barely-there smile. _People don’t like me_ , Alec had explained to Magnus once, what feels like forever ago, before the wedding, even – when Alec had spent the night at his apartment after helping heal Luke from the alpha dispute. After his third cocktail, Alec had loosened up a little, both of them sitting with a cordial amount of space between them on Magnus’s couch (the same couch on which they sit right now, with a decidedly less cordial separation, Alec dropping lazy kisses intermittently on his lips, his neck). _Why did you want me here, really?_ Alec had said that day, a different man, rigid and untalkative. _People don’t like me, not usually._ Magnus had not known what to say to that then, to the beautiful and slightly broken Lightwood boy – cold and aloof, sweet but aching, everything about him somehow still softer than water  –  that somehow stumbled his way into Magnus’s life and living room.

“You know who else likes you?” Magnus says now, voice light.

“You?” Alec says, raising his eyebrows and looking up at Magnus.

“Well, _yes_ ,” Magnus says, leaning down and kissing him ever so gently on the lips. (Alec’s three words echo in his mind like the peal of a distant bell, haunting him, healing him, with every brush of their lips. It makes him want to say it over and over and over again.) “Of course _I_ do. But also the little one.”

“Who? Madzie?”

Magnus nods. “She asked me about you as I was taking her away.”

“Oh, yeah?” Alec’s mouth forms an unconsciously wide smile. “What’d she say?”

Magnus smiles, if only because Alec’s is so sweet, so blindingly beautiful in such proximity. “She asked me if you were okay. She asked about the tall boy with the weird gill who was her friend.”

“The weird -- ? Oh,” Alec realizes, rubbing the dark and conspicuous rune on his neck. “That’s cute. I said I liked her gills when I first met her. Maybe she remembered that.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Magnus says with a slight smile. “You’re a hard one to forget. Take it from me.”

At this, Alec’s face breaks out into a full-fledged grin, ducking his head slightly, averting his gaze so his long lashes flutter slightly. Magnus has never seen anything he has loved more, he does not think, in his entire life. He reaches over to tilt Alec’s head towards him enough to press a few soft kisses on the rune they were talking about, along the line of his neck, trailing his lips higher and higher, enjoying the music of Alec’s soft intakes of breath, until he reaches Alec’s lips again.

“What did you say? When she asked?” Alec breathes, their lips brushing together.

“I said,” Magnus murmurs between kisses, punctuating every few words with a press to Alec’s lips, “I said I hoped he was okay too…that he was my friend too, and I said that…that I love the tall boy with the weird gill – I love – I love you. I love you.”

He had said it once, and it had set him free from something he had not known was imprisoning him, not until his forehead was pressed against Alec’s so gently earlier this morning outside the halls of that great stone church, not until his heart felt lighter than he knew it ever could be.

 “I love you too, Magnus.” Alec smiles the sweetest smile, and it’s like the universe caves in somewhere inside Magnus, and he deepens the kiss so no more words can be spoken for the moment.

Magnus kisses back for a moment, and it seems as though they are going to pick up where they left off earlier, as Alec shuffles, turning around to kiss him properly – but just as soon he does, Alec breaks off the kiss suddenly with a small shudder that sounds like a sob. He pulls back from Magnus for a moment, looking at him so briefly that Magnus cannot place his expression, and then he buries his face in Magnus’s shoulder, and Magnus can feel how he trembles; he is so close that Magnus can almost feel how his heartbeat stutters.

“Alec,” he says softly, “what is it? What’s wrong?”

Alec doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and Magnus gently strokes the back of his neck, holding him close. It doesn’t seem now like Alec is crying as it had briefly appeared to Magnus before, but Magnus isn’t sure what has just come over him, some tide of emotion that he cannot communicate, that he does not understand. If Alec is feeling even a fraction of the swell of love and fear and uncertainty and joy that has encompassed Magnus in the past few hours alone, then the poor man must be overwhelmed. Alec feels like a first to Magnus, but for Alec, none of this has any semblance of precedent. It is raw and unfamiliar, absolute and all-encompassing.

“Hey…” Magnus says softly, rubbing small circles into his back. “It’s okay.”

After another moment, Alec surfaces from the hug, breathing hard. His lips are trembling ever so slightly. He grabs Magnus’s face and nearly smashes their lips together in another kiss suddenly, dizzying, short and deep and messy and so full of need that it knocks Magnus off of his axis a little bit. 

“Easy,” Magnus murmurs with a slight smile, pulling away. “Alec, what’s going on? You okay?”

“I just – ” Alec swallows, hesitating, his brow furrowing. He looks away as he speaks, towards the floor. He used to do that a lot, but now it’s rarer. His breath is coming in sputtering gasps. “I can’t believe – that this is, you know, that this is real sometimes. That this is happening, that this is me, my life, that I get to be _so_ lucky. Sometimes I think I’m going to wake up and have to go back to where I was before I met you. And thinking about that – it feels – it gets hard to breathe. And then today, thinking that I _did_ lose you, that I _would_ have to go back to that place, I – I just – I – ”

“Hey.” Magnus tilts Alec’s chin up, gently easing him into eye contact. “It’s okay, Alec. This is real. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” He smiles, hoping the sadness won’t show through in his eyes. “If there’s anything you can count on me to be, it’s permanent. For better or for worse.”

Alec looks at him for a long moment, his expression inscrutable, his brow furrowed in thought. But then his face clears into a smile, a ray of sun cutting through the grey. “I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

The words knock the breath out of Magnus for a half-second. Magnus knows magic, he knows of every kind that is or ever was in the shadow world; or, he thought he did. But the way Alec looks Magnus in the eyes and speaks is goddamn bewitching, and Magnus cannot look away, and he cannot help but believe every word he says. It’s not magic, of course, just that breathtaking sincerity that so becomes Alec. It hits him like a punch to the gut at Alec’s words, how much his presence has changed Alec’s life; he thinks back to the frigid boy he first met all that time ago, and then looks to the present-day Alec sitting before him, trying to learn how to love someone when the world had convinced him that he could never, that he should never, that he would never.

Magnus wishes he knew the words to tell Alec how much all of this means to him, but it is difficult. The twist he feels in his stomach is not trepidation, but it is not the kind of light, helium elation that he has known before. He doesn’t know what to make of it, and he cannot help but hide it from Alec. He is trying to learn to be open, just as Alec is, but it’s a long road towards unlearn all of the things they had to learn to protect themselves from people who would not be as kind. At least, Magnus hopes, they will have each other to lean on while they try.

Instead, he flashes Alec another quick smile, trying to change the subject slightly. Just for now. “You didn’t have to worry about me, anyway,” he says with a wink. “I had something special, remember? For luck and protection.”

From his pocket, he proffers the omamori that Alec had bought him, that he carries with him wherever he goes. Alec looks at it, tilting his head slightly as if in confusion for a second.

“That thing?” he says finally. “You had it with you? I didn’t even know if you kept it or not.”

“Of course,” Magnus says, slightly surprised. “You gave it to me, of course I did. People don’t always…they haven’t really…given me…”

He trails off at the expressions flitting across Alec’s face, the slight grin – pleased with himself at Magnus having liked his present so much, then the confusion as he tries to figure out what Magnus is trying to say, why this trinket has been so important to him, and the compassion when he finally realizes what Magnus is getting at.

“Well,” Alec says, his lips twitching into a smile. His next words are halting but as true as gospel. “I’m glad it helped. I’m glad that – that you liked it so much, and...Magnus, I’m not going anywhere either. I promise.”

Magnus just nods, pensive for a moment. He tries not to dwell on the past, lest he let it consume him, all the centuries of heartache and tragedy, the laughter and scraps of light, that are now just passing faded fragments – photo albums full of faded pictures, where you can’t recognize the faces, where all those people who once were alive have now died and been forgotten by the world and everyone else, everyone but Magnus, who keeps everyone like a relic, who can never let go. He tries not to think about places like London. But, still, he closes his eyes and thinks of clockwork things and the slowness of time, of the days and weeks and months of abject misery that he spent blankly waiting for love, that he spent tangled in the strings of someone toying with him, until he realized it would never come. For all the years after that, when he tried to convince himself that it would never come. And now Alec, out of the blue, tearing down those walls, when he had stopped hoping for something like this to ever be his. Alec who does not just want Magnus’s love, but who wants earnestly to love him too. Who does not care that Magnus’s broken heart is a hard burden to carry. He clutches the omamori in his fist, and puts it slowly back into his pocket. Luck and protection. He can’t help but smile, and as he catches Alec’s eye, it spreads like warm sunlight onto Alec’s face as well.

The sound of an intrusive vibration from Alec’s phone coldly breaks the warm silence that had been building between them. “It’s Jace,” Alec says apologetically. Even while tapping to answer the call, he leans in for a quick kiss as if he were ignoring it.

“Hey, lover boy,” comes the tinny voice of Jace from the phone as Alec pulls reluctantly away from Magnus. “Sorry, but we could really use you back here.”

“Okay,” Alec says, as Magnus tries to distract him with small kisses to his jaw, his cheek. “Did anything – did anything happen, or – Mag _nus_ – ” Alec interrupts himself sharply as Magnus starts taking his tongue to the rune on Alec’s neck, knowing full well how sensitive the skin is there. As red flushes Alec’s cheeks, he continues in a desperately casual tone, “Did anything happen? Any news on who took the sword, or anything from the interrogations?”

“Nope,” says Jace, and Magnus swears he can _hear_ Jace’s teasing grin. “Actually, they want you on interrogating Valentine. Apparently I’m too close to it, whatever that could possibly mean.”

“Me?” Alec repeats, surprised.

“Yeah, that’s what Aldertree said. Apparently you’re – what’s the word? – unflappable. Although, based on what I’ve heard just now, maybe I’ll have to tell them – ”

“Shut up,” Alec says, blushing an even deeper red. “I’m leaving now, I’ll be there as soon as I can. _Shut up_.”

Jace just laughs and hangs up.

Alec turns to Magnus, every part of his demeanour conveying an apology he doesn’t need to give. “I’m sorry, Magnus, I have to – ”

“Go,” Magnus finishes, so Alec won’t feel so bad saying it. “Of course. I should be headed out soon anyway. Hope the werewolves don’t tear me a new one for having the scent of Shadowhunter all over me.”

“Oh,” Alec says, getting up and shrugging on his jacket, “sorry?”

Magnus grins. “Don’t worry about it. It will have been worth it – hey, come here one more time. Make the scent fresh to _really_ piss them off.” Alec looks slightly blank, and Magnus shakes his head. “I’m _kidding_ , Alexander. Luke and I will be able to smooth things over. Just get over here and kiss me.”

Alec smiles and acquiesces, leaning down to bridge the slight difference in height. Their lips brush together for only a moment, but it feels like a small infinity tucked inside this brief second of contact. Alec draws away first.

“I love you,” he says, and right in this moment the world could come down and it would not matter in the slightest to Magnus. Shards of cloud and sky could litter the rubble around them, leaving nothing but hollow stars, and it would not matter. He is the world, he is the sky, he is the stars, and every dream and memory that they hold is in the expanse of his eyes.

Falling into them, falling into this – it does not feel like falling at all. For the first time in a long time, it feels like he is steady and the earth is level beneath him, and there is a light in a window somewhere that is calling him home again.

“I love you, too, Alexander.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Normally I write most comfortably from Alec's POV but I wanted to try out Jace and Magnus for this one. I know it's been like...three weeks since the episode or something but I'm slow. As always, you can talk to me on tumblr at [daddarios](http://daddarios.tumblr.com).


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